


Welcome to Gravity Falls

by DearLazerBunny



Category: Gravity Falls, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 08:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13632369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DearLazerBunny/pseuds/DearLazerBunny
Summary: - Summary: After deciding to go exploring, Dipper and Mabel Pines of Gravity Falls find themselves in a very different sort of woods…





	Welcome to Gravity Falls

Hot and dense was the weather of worn Gravity Falls. Standing in solidarity against the muggy air was the Mystery Shack, which clung to its crumbling foundation with an impressive tenacity. Amongst supernatural attacks and incredulous happenings, the only thing that seemed to contribute to the weathered air of sleepiness the shack gave off was the periods of intense nothings it fell victim to from time to time. Today was one such day: the sluggishness of the oppressive heat permeated the town and left it sitting idly underneath the summer sun. Citizens took refuge where they could, gathering at the local pool and lake, but all in all it was a quiet day in a town that was used to being anything but quiet.  
Hat angled to block the sun streaming through the window, Dipper Pines sat on the check out counter that hunkered in his uncle’s Mystery Shack, savoring the shade. His twin sister Mabel sat cross legged on the floor nearby, occupied with her sweater-du-jour; a feathered monstrosity whose emerald plumes were of an undetermined origin. Wendy, the gift shop assistant, stood languidly at the cash register, talking in relaxed tone to present company. But mostly Dipper. Clearly, her head was angled more towards him than his sister, so that means she’s talking to him. Right? Right. He adjusted his hat awkwardly and made a half-hearted attempt to understand what band Wendy was dissecting. The unending crush he had on her helped a little in the attention category.

“Man, that woodpecker has been going at it.” The bird in question had been ruthlessly pecking at a tree for the better part of the morning; Dipper was pretty sure the echoes could be heard in the Bottomless Pit. Wendy threw her head towards the half open window.

“Don’t give up! You got this!” She gave a little fist punch in support of the lone song resonating through the trees.  
“Why are there so many of those around here?” Dipper asked, swinging his legs against the side of the counter.  
“I dunno man.” She rolled her head around to look at him, tucking a piece of red hair behind her ear. “Why does anything happen in those woods?”

Dipper nodded, acknowledging the point. You know, that’s true. Everything weird that’s happened this summer has been coming from the forest: gnomes, minotaurs, even the diary was hidden in an old tree…  
Lost in thought, he barely caught the jawbreaker Wendy tossed him from the glass jar sitting to her right. The sugary blue eye stared up at him.

“Don’t tell Stan,” Wendy winked as she tossed a ball into her mouth.  
“Haha, no- no! Of course not. Haha.” Mortified, he shoved the sugar into his cheek before he could say something even more intelligent.

The Mystery Shack’s door tinkled an off-key dissonance.

“Soos! Hey! Check out my sweater!” Mabel was giddy as she leapt up and sped her way over to the big man.

“Right on! That sweater is awesome.” He looked around, taking in the empty shop.

“Hey Dipper, Hey Wendy.” Wendy nodded in that completely cool and mysterious way that she did. Not that Dipper noticed or anything.

“Hey Soos.” He worked the gumball over to the other side of his mouth. “Nice job being early for work.”

“Thanks man!” He held out his hand for a fist bump, and Dipper obliged. “So, what’s going on here?”

“Not much. Hey, does it seem strange to you that no one knows why there are so many woodpeckers in the woods?” Dipper asked.

“No. Don’t think about the woods. One time I did that and I got a massive headache. Not fun.”  
Dipper made a noncommittal noise. “Well, now that you’re here, you and Wendy can handle the shop. Mabel, can I talk to you about something? Upstairs?”

“Okay! Last one there’s a muddy pineapple!” She was off in a streak of green, heedlessly knocking over an entire stand of t-shirts that read “See what all the mystery is about!” Dipper heaved off the counter and dashed after her, smiling at the laughter behind him. They raced up the old wood hallways and up to the attic, eventually tumbling over themselves in fits of laughter and ending up sprawled on the floor. 

Elbowing her twin off of her, Mabel suppressed a hiccup. “I win!”

“Yeah, right, you know I won,” Dipper teased her, poking her stomach and releasing the massive hiccup. She sprang off the floor and landed right back where she was, sending them into fits once again.

“Oh, man.” Mabel wiped her hair back from her face. “Why are we up here anyways?”

“Oh!” Dipper stood up and went to rummage under his bed, emerging with the mysterious six-finger diary he used to navigate Gravity Falls. “What Wendy said down there, about the forest? She’s right! Think about it- name one weird thing that’s happened that hasn’t come out of that forest.”

Mabel twirled her hair. “Mermando!” 

Fair enough. “Okay, besides him.”

She shrugged. “Whaddya wanna do about it?”

Dipper assumed his best I Have A Great Idea Voice. “I propose we hike into the woods. As far as we can. We know about what lives in the woods- well, most of it- but how well do we actually know the wood itself?”

Mabel grabbed a hairbrush and ran it idly through her mane, ignoring when it got caught in the curls at the bottom. “Can I bring Waddles?”

“Wha- no! Mabel, He’ll just slow us down! Why do you need to bring a pig?”

“Ugh, you never let me do anything fun Dipper!” She chucked the hairbrush at him, aiming for his face but as it is grazing his arm.

“Mabel…” He rubbed what he liked to call his bicep. “I just don’t want Waddles to get hurt.” She softened. “Tell you what- if we go without Waddles, we can sit on the roof tonight and throw water balloons.”  
Mabel chewed her lip, considering the (admittedly) very generous deal. “Okay, fine. But you can’t whine about it being all dangerous up there either!”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, come on.” He held out his hand, and Mabel took it, levering herself off the floor.

“But I am totally bringing the picnic basket!”

 ______________________________________________________________________________________________

  
Days later, once the heat had broken and settled into something less scorching, the pair headed off West of the Mystery Shack. Dipper had extensively planned and prepared, boasting a pack stuffed to the brim full of useful things (compass, journal, portable radio…) and Mabel, well. Mabel had indeed packed a picnic basket as promised, as well as an inexplicable small plastic llama she snuck in there underneath the sandwiches without Dipper noticing. Armed with supplies, they headed into the forest following a map Dipper found leafing through the journal. Where it led, neither of them were exactly sure, but it was much better than their previous plan of wandering around aimlessly.

As the day led on, they wound through ravines, hiked up small cliffs, and generally marveled at the seemingly endless wonders of the woods. Flocks of huge predatory birds would take off from the treetops whenever they passed underneath, and caves promised something sinister lurking in their depths. As the sun climbed and then began to set, their food supplied slowly dwindled to nothing more than water. The shadows lengthened and seemed to threaten harm. Unnerved by the silence, barely punctured by the rustling and calling of the wild animals (or.. beings…) Dipper fiddled with the dial on his portable radio. With a crackle, it began to broadcast Gravity Falls’ local news station.

“Today the weather in Gravity Falls is starchy.”

“Oh yeah, I can definitely feel the starch Dipper. Feeeeeeeeeeel the starch.” She made exaggerated grabbing motions in the air in front of her.

They continued on, buoyed by the small comfort of home. The trees seemed to grow smaller as they progressed… Dipper made a note of it in the journal.

“Has it gotten hotter?” Mabel pulled out a water bottle and gulped some down.   
Dipper shook his head, but made a note of that too. On and on they went, through the rapidly thinning trees and hotter and hotter atmosphere.

“The city pool will be raising its admittance fee to seven dollars, from the previous six fifty.”

“I’m hungry, Dipper.”

Muttering, Dipper held the pages closer to his face. “The book said to turn left at the second rock, but we seem to have-”

“Second rock?! We’ve passed two hundred thousand rocks!”  
The radio continued its segment on the new exhibit in the local museum on bullfrogs. “This has been Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner!”  
If the twins had been listening, they might have noticed that no such segment ran on the Gravity Falls local news station. But they were not, and so the flippant tones of a man they had never heard fell on metaphorically deaf ears.  
  
“Mr. Zackwaski is hungry, Dipper.”

Dipper frowned. “Who?

“Mr. Zackwaski!” She waved her pink plastic stowaway near his face. Dipper ignored her sentiment and turned his attention to the now crackling radio. Fiddling with the knob for a few minutes, the lines on his face grew deeper as he couldn’t recover any sort of signal. Eventually it cut out completely, and the two were left sitting in the ever-growing dark, listening to the night sounds a forest makes. A few birds, some coyotes, and was that… whispering? The wind, surely.

“Where are we, Dipper?”

“I don’t know. Pretty far away I guess. But the compass says we’ve only walked- four miles.” He squinted at the sky. “If we hurry, and ignore that hedge labyrinth on the way back, we’ll make it home a little after nightfall.”  
The radio suddenly hummed to life. They both jumped as the mechanical noise echoed through the trees.

“And now, a word from our sponsors. Feeling Lost?” Dipper grinned when Mabel nodded her head enthusiastically. “Feeling like life is a meandering spiral into the depths of nowhere? Life is like that sometimes. Sometimes, this pathetic existence feels like a cruel joke played on us unsuspecting bags of meat by some higher power that is known, and also, unknown. Sometimes, we shudder to think that this life as we know it is pointless. Sometimes, we dare to think about life.”  
“Big Rico’s Pizza. Because no one does a slice like Big Rico’s. No one.”`

“Pizza! Dipper that’s food!” Mabel grabbed the radio and held it closer, presumably to hear it better. A few flocks of startled birds took off from the nearby treetops.

“I don’t think this signal came from Gravity Falls, Mabel. We’ve been here all summer- have you ever heard of Big Rico’s Pizza?”

“The man on the radio is talking about pizza. I want pizza Dipper!”

He hesitated, listening to the smooth voice resonating through the speakers.

“We should head back. We don’t know where this is coming from.”

Mabel rolled her eyes and started forward before her stick-in-the-mud brother could protest.  
  
“So let’s find out. You’re the one who wanted to figure out the forest. There could be a whole city in there and you’re too grumpy to go and find it!”

“Fine, fine. All right, Mabel, stop pulling on me!” Reluctantly, he shoved the radio- which was now playing music, though the man had previously promised the weather- into his pocket, grabbed their gear, and followed after her. As they walked, the signal became stronger. After squishing over a hill, Dipper realized the soil had turned sandy, a rich gold compared to the muddy brown beneath Gravity Falls.   
“Weird,” he murmured, scanning the journal for any hint that this was normal for the area. Mabel kept amazing pace- he should have promised her there was an ice cream parlor at the end or something, she’d have moved so much faster- but after walking over the hundredth hill and passing the same trees, he grew frustrated with their walking in circles. The mysteries of the forest seemed to be growing thin.

“I spy with my little eye, something that is green.”

Dipper sighed. “Mabel, this whole forest is green.”

“To make it extra hard, duh.” She giggled, elbowing him in the side. He smiled in spite of himself.  
“That tree.”

“Actually it was the third branch on that tree, but I’ll give it to you anyways. Your turn!”

They lobbied back and forth between themselves as the shadows grew longer beneath their feet. Fascinating spied objects ranged from “that vein of sand near your pinkie toe” to “your weirdo birthmark” (Dipper didn’t appreciate that one). After a few rounds, Mabel suddenly ran through the clearing.   
“I spy something that is purple!” Her voice rang from between the trees.  
“What are you talking about? The only thing here is-”  
He stopped. Rising before them was a weathered, faded sign with drippy purple writing: WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE, established… Dipper wasn’t entirely certain that was a number. The boards were warped, with edges chipped and scored with- claw marks? Further on, they could catch glimpses of small houses and buildings tucked into the dusty desert. Desert? He was 99.9% certain where they were standing should not resemble the Sahara, and yet, here they were. Looking back, the massive trees that had surrounded them for months seemed small and immaterial compared to the dunes and sun rising before them.

Mabel, to her credit, seemed completely unconcerned with the change in scenery or her brother’s incredulous murmuring. “Come on, Dipper! I think I see a road-” She fearlessly scrambled up the nearest sandy hill and kept on, her brother tailing behind her, too deep in shock to do much protesting. Underneath his incoherent mumblings and Mabel’s happy chatter, the man on the radio was speaking:

“Well, Night Vale, it seems we have some unexpected visitors. There are two small life forms entering the East part of town. One wears a hat marked with a tree, and the other a green sweater. Undoubtably, these are marks of the Whispering Forest- perhaps it has started reproducing through humanoid figures? In any case, dear listeners, be on your guard- the Forest is rarely as innocuous as it seems. More on this story as it develops.” 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Because no one can convince me that Gravity Falls isn’t inside the Whispering Forest...


End file.
